The
silent mantra, 'I will not eat chocolate, I will not eat
chocolate,' for instance, will eventually make you go nuts and commit
waistline suicide. Whereas if you tell yourself you're going to enjoy a
little chocolate once a week, you can go right ahead, knowing everything
is OK in moderation.

'Set rules around how often
you'll eat the foods you miss – say, once a week. Then phrase your
thinking in positive terms – that is, "I'm going to enjoy
a little chocolate once a week". The key is to remove this idea of
"good food vs bad food", which ultimately makes you obsess about the
so-called bad ones," advises Piggott.

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Studies show that people who deprive themselves of foods
they really love often overeat the things they don't enjoy so much, in
order to compensate, she adds.

Exercise
is also known to improve mood – also helpful for maintaining a positive
attitude towards reaching your goal of a healthy weight.

'Don't
get into using exercise to balance out calories, though,' warns Pigott.
'That's where people often go horribly wrong. It's much better to think
of exercise as a benefit to your overall good health.'

3. Relying on short-term calorie reduction

This
is no way to fight the flab – and it's all down to evolution. Avoiding
starvation was a key evolutionary factor for early homo sapiens, so if
we suddenly reduce our calorie intake, our bodies and brains are
programmed to fight back.

'Our bodies think "Help!
Famine!" and hang onto fat storage like mad – not exactly conducive to
reducing our waistlines.' explains Dr Marilyn Glenville, nutritionist
and author of Fat Around the Middle and Natural Alternatives to Sugar.
'It's important to remember that many generations ago, our whole life
was dependent on us surviving and that's what our bodies are geared up
for.'

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It's not as if weight loss from sudden calorie
reduction lasts, points out Pigott. 'You get dramatic weight loss in
the first few days – but it's mostly fluid, so it's not sustainable, so
it leads to people feeling disheartened that the three to four pounds a
day they were losing at first isn't continuing.

'Far better to make small and maintainable changes to your eating habits that you can stick to in the long run.'

In
fact, because your body craves those calories it's missing, you'll feel
hungry most of the time – which could make you eat even more. Our blood
sugar levels drop too – which is why we get sugar cravings – again
making us likely to eat more, not less. 'Rapid weight loss can have
nasty side effects too, leading to gall stones and nutritional
deficiencies,' adds Pigott.

4. Fearing carbs

Carbohydrates are
important to your health as the body's main source of energy. Moreover,
healthy sources of carbs - such as starchy foods, vegetables, fruits and
dairy - are important sources of nutrients including calcium, iron and B
vitamins.

What's more, cutting out carbs and replacing
them with fats and protein could increase your intake of saturated fat,
which won't just make you more prone to put on weight, but can also
raise your cholesterol levels and put you at risk of heart disease.

'Not
all carbohydrates are equal – it's the type and amount we include in
our diet that matters,' explains Glenville. 'By all means, cut down
refined carbohydrates – that is, sugary foods –and include healthier, unrefined ones instead, such as brown rice, oats and vegetables.'

Pigott
adds that carbs help stabilise our blood glucose, which allows us to
make rational decisions about food choices. 'We know that without carbs,
people are prone to make quick decisions around food that allow them to
overeat. So you might skip carbs at dinner, but then your blood glucose
drops and you go for the nearest foods you can at 10pm,' she says.

5. Skipping breakfast

One
of the biggest challenges people struggle with when they're trying to
lose weight is the belief that they have to cut down the amount of food
they eat – and research shows the meal they're most likely to skimp on,
or even cut out, is breakfast. But, agree all food experts, breakfast is
the most important meal of the day and should account for around 20 per
cent of your total calorie intake.

If you skip it, it
may send messages to your brain that your body is going into hibernation
mode and any calories you consumer later are more likely to be stored
as fat. Numerous studies show that people who try to lose weight tend to
be far more successful if they regularly eat breakfast.

Foods to fill up on first thing are high-fibre fodder such
as nuts, fruit, and wholegrain, as well as natural low-fat yoghurt and
low-calorie fruit juices.

'Always check before
assuming breakfast foods are high calorie,' adds dietitian Azmina
Govindji. 'An egg, for example, has just 85 calories, whilst two
weetabix and semi-skimmed milk has around 200 calories.'

6. Feeling you have to follow a certain diet

There are zillions of diets
– low carb or no carb, high or low fat, protein rich or poor – and they
all claim they're proven to work. 'Of course, anything that restricts
your food intake will result in weight loss, but unless you want to
follow a restricted diet for the rest of your life – which we know from
research that only a small proportion of people can manage – then no
diet really supersedes the other in terms of what it will achieve,' says
Pigott.

Save your time and money, she advises, and do
your research on reliable dietary information from sources like NHS
Choices and the BDA to work out a plan to suit you.

'You
don't need a PhD to design your own diet. Nor do you need exotic
ingredients like acacia berries. You just do some basic research and to
set some boundaries to suit the way you eat. It's no coincidence that
people who have dieted their whole lives have had so many conflicting
views that they often have no idea of what a normal, healthy diet looks
like anymore. It's time we listened to our own bodies.'

7. Yo-yo dieting

'A
lot of diets don't even have a scientific basis, yet they blind you
with pseudoscience that makes you think, "Oh that must be true!"' says
Pigott.

'A common claim is that their diet increases
metabolism. But when you look at the science, it's minimal and doesn't
really work, leading the dieter to give up on it and try another one
instead. Others might come back to the same diet time and time again,
each time failing because it was never sustainable in the first place.'

Before
you know it, she says, you're a perpetual dieter. 'Not only does this
lead to a poor relationship with food, but it can disinhibit your body's
natural ability to know if it's hungry or full, which is no good at all
for sustained weight loss. Then there's the effect on your muscles,
which are constantly being starved and therefore become weaker and
weaker, ultimately leading to reduction in metabolism and making your
body less efficient at losing weight than ever.'